Revelation 12:16 in 8 translations
7 distinct wordings, grouped by what each translation is trying to do. Differences from the King James text are marked below.
Early modern English
Seventeenth-century wording and sentence shape. Familiar, rhythmic, and the version most quotations you have heard are taken from.
And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth.
1611 / 1769 · Public domain · The Authorised Version, revised to the 1769 Blayney text. Includes the Apocrypha as printed in 1611.
Literal, word-for-word
Follows Hebrew and Greek word order and grammar closely, even where the English becomes stiff. Useful for seeing what the underlying sentence is doing.
And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth and swallowed up the river which the dragon cast out of his mouth.
1901 · Public domain · The American revision of the English Revised Version. Deliberately literal, and the base text behind several later translations.
And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed the river which the dragon cast out of his mouth.
1890 · Public domain · John Nelson Darby's translation, made for close study rather than public reading. Often exposes grammatical detail other versions smooth over.
and the land did help the woman, and the land did open its mouth and did swallow up the river, that the dragon did cast forth out of his mouth;
1898 · Public domain · The most extreme word-for-word rendering here, keeping Hebrew and Greek tense and word order at the cost of natural English.
Modern English
Contemporary vocabulary and punctuation, aiming for the sentence a present-day reader would write while staying close to the source.
The earth helped the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed up the river which the dragon spewed out of his mouth.
2000s · Public domain · A modern-English update of the ASV. Reads close to contemporary speech while staying in the literal tradition. Includes the Apocrypha.
These 2 editions word this verse identically.
But Earth came to her help, and opened her mouth and drank up the river which the Dragon had poured out of its mouth.
in progress · Public domain (CC0) · A modern open-licensed translation, still being completed. Some Old Testament books are not yet available.
Simplified English
Built from a deliberately small vocabulary so the sense stays reachable for new readers and non-native speakers. Trades nuance for clarity.
And the earth gave help to the woman, and with open mouth took up the river which the dragon sent out of his mouth.
1949 · Public domain · Written with roughly a thousand basic English words plus a small Bible vocabulary. The plainest reading available here.
What changes between the King James and modern wording
The modern rendering is printed below with every word that differs from the King James text marked, so the actual divergence is visible rather than left for you to spot.
the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened its mouth, and swallowed up the river which the dragon spewed out of his mouth.
Word-for-word swaps
- her→its
- flood→river
- cast→spewed
The verses either side
King James text. A comparison is easier to judge when you can see the sentence the verse sits inside.